Bowling Green

Bowling Green is the oldest public park in New York. Back in 1770 when the city was still under British rule, there used to be a statue of King George III standing here. But in 1776, as soon as the Americans had declared independence, George Washington and his troops marched down to Bowling Green here to topple the statue. But they put him to good use. They chopped the statue up to little pieces, melted down the metal, and then from that molten metal they created 40,000 bullets to fire back at the British. They did save King George's head because they wanted to put that on the end of a spike and then parade it around the city. Luckily for the British, the British loyalists managed to steal the head and send it back to the safety of England.
This lovely bit of cast-iron fencing here was created by the British all the way back in 1773. It's the oldest cast-iron fence in all of America. It was erected by the British here to protect the statue of King George III that used to be in the park. Rather ironically the statue of King George only lasted for three years more, whereas the fence itself is still here over 200 years more. Well not quite all of it. Because if you take a look to the top of the pillar here, you can see they’re a little bit roughly finished. That's because there used to be little British crowns on the top. But after the Americans had toppled the statue of King George, they cut off the little crowns here too.